I myself predicted there will be a run on oxygen concentrators and had one rented for my mom in case. But when delta hit I couldn’t in good conscience keep it and returned it back to the hospital. I know many rich families did not do that and hoarded cylinders and concentrators like this when people were dying. However I’m not convinced that this was the reason for the massive suffering caused in india. It’s just another facet of the cruelty that happened during this time.
Either way, the elderly have already lived their life, isn't it better to focus on the younger people when a choice must be made?
[edit] also, do things for whom? To what end if not to build experience?
In other words I'm saying that's a silly analogy
Worshipping youth in its ignorance and speed while discarding the wisdom of elders is called fascism. The right question would be what can civilization hope to achieve besides a reversion to barbarism and "Lord of the Flies" if it doesn't hold its oldest, most vulnerable and most wise members, and their experience, in the highest regard?
The young have always been proud and disposable. And if they don't die young, they get old. Then maybe they have something more interesting to say.
You're putting the wrong lens on this. My argument is that we are to deliberately harm the young to possibly protect the old and ill (which in this case isn't so as the vaccines don't guarantee prevention), rather than leaving them alone in the hope of protecting the old and ill as-is. Not 'let the old die for the young.'
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.30.21264376v...
In line with many first world countries: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-...
Notably, sub-Saharan Africa did not suffer greatly from Covid.
Neither did China. How stunning. It must be due to their fantastic public health systems.
You don't have to arbitrarily trust some authority. Everyone in the country could see from their own experience that spread of the virus really was being effectively controlled.
The question is, do you think it is easier or harder to spot the lies of Western journalism, and what problems does that cause in forming a base to judge others?
No, it's not 'the question' whether it's easier or harder to spot the 'lies' of Western journalism. That has no bearing whatsoever on the obvious, cut and dry reason for the underreporting of covid deaths in China.
But it is worth pointing out that, unlike the "news" propaganda organs of dictatorships, Western journalism is in no sense a monolith that speaks with one voice. Not even mainstream media in the US speaks with one voice (because yes, Fox is the MSM too). So while it may require a bit more sophistication to pick out truths, it is at least not a one-sided distortion of history in favor of the rulers.
No, finding the flaws in western journalism takes more effort because it's not as obvious. Which means the rulers can get away with propoganda and manipulation much more easily than one who provides a direct, complete and obvious propoganda.
I think people would be wise to be equally critical of left and right MSM, not just assume they aren't propoganda because they are on different 'sides' (hint, they're not really)
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you keep the virus out of the country, you don't need great hospitals.
«Rather than an ‹African paradox,› the far simpler explanation is that COVID-19 has affected African countries just as the virus has everywhere else, but has gone undocumented.»
https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/morgue-data-reveal...
In countries with a younger population, less deaths from acute COVID-19 are expected, although the number of additional direct deaths from COVID-19 is still substantial. The disease burden burden, i.e., morbidity, also remains high, maybe even more given the sub-par health infrastructure.
Of course they do. If they suffered dramatically from Covid, it would be documented, just as it was for Ebola, Malaria, etc.
> SARS-CoV-2 does not behave differently in Africa than in other regions of the world, especially not in low-vaccination (or even no-vaccination) countries.
The statistics for Covid are all over the map with regards to vaccine status [2].
Some countries with high mRNA distributions did well (Canada, Australia). Some countries with high mRNA distributions did not do well (Brazil, US, Russia, Italy, Cuba). Some countries with low mRNA distribution did well (sub-Saharan Africa, Haiti, DR, Jamaica, Egypt, Papa New Guinea) [1][2].
> In countries with a younger population, less deaths from acute COVID-19 are expected, although the number of additional direct deaths from COVID-19 is still substantial.
A lot of these countries are showing 50-100 excessive deaths per 100K. That's on par with a bad flu season. Sub-saharan Africa has suffered far worse disease outbreaks than Covid. And unlike Covid, diseases like Malaria affect children [3].
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations#what-share-of-... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/malaria-introduction
India was completely devastated by COVID-19.
One reason was that India failed to focus their care on actually vulnerable elderly people and they instead had 30-something dudes demanding intensive care and taking up oxygen cylinders for themselves and their families.